


A Good Idea At The Time

by redandgold



Category: Football RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-04 05:23:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4126836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redandgold/pseuds/redandgold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippets and drabbles featuring Scheville in 100 prompts. 011. domestic - gaz and scholesy play 'would you rather' over breakfast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Bits and pieces from the [football100 prompts table](http://bedeville.livejournal.com/871.html). Most likely featuring a lot of sap, to make up for the angst that is Beville.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **002\. S N O W**
> 
> _Gary's coming back from Barcelona, Scholesy wants to do something nice for him, and Phil's just sitting around being the third wheel he usually is._
> 
> * * *

 

"Hey, Phil." 

It's very rare for Scholesy to strike up a conversation, and Phil chokes on his green tea (which, he would like to point out, is a drink for professionals) before he manages to cough up a "what?"

Scholesy's not looking at him, but out the window at the white flurry sweeping towards the ground. Phil's surprised that the curtains are open at all. "When does Gaz get back from Barcelona?" he mumbles.

Phil really ought to know this, but the person who usually takes care of these things is on a flight back from Barcelona. "Dunno," he replies, switching back to his Everton Review DVD. "It's probably in the drawer somewhere, have a look."

There are rummaging noises, a bang on what Phil can only assume was a finger, and the grumpist yelp in the world to match. Scholesy peers at the ridiculously loopy writing in a valiant attempt to distinguish 6s from 8s.

"Did Gaz say how he was getting back?" Scholesy asks, and Phil turns a page too quickly, tearing the corner off. He stares at Scholesy like a customs officer at a heavy suitcase. "No," he says slowly, dragging the word out. "You know what he's like. Has to do everything himself."

Scholesy grunts and looks back out of the window. Exactly thirty seven seconds later, which is prime Scholesy time for deciding to do something really brilliant or really stupid, he grabs his coat and breezes out the door.

Phil grins and picks up the phone.

\---

Gaz ends up waiting a lot longer than he should have, and his face has acquired a familiar red sheen known only too well to terrified Scousers by the time the hour's up. He's just about to ring Phil up and shout in his ear for another ridiculous practical joke, when a familiar not-so-ginger head doddles into view. Gaz hangs up on Phil and - stares.

"No - " mumbles Scholesy, looking down at his sodden trouser legs in obvious discomfort. "- no trouble. Welcome home. Sorry 'bout the wait."

"Scholesy, you've got a black eye and a carrot in your hair. And no, this is not a ginger joke."

Scholesy winces, plucks it out from behind his ear and sticks it into his pocket. "Ran into a snowman," he shrugs. "Gave me the cold shoulder, and that."

His one-liners this time, however, fail to work their usual magic, and under frighteningly intense eyeballing from Gaz, he attempts to string together more than two sentences.

"I was going to pick you up, see - save you trouble - stinking traffic up the motorway - squiffed a chap who tried to pick a fight. Finally got to within a few miles, nly to have the engine freeze or summat, jogged the rest. Not great, I'll tell you what, jogging in supposedly ankle-deep snow when you're five-foot-six."

Gaz's staring is making Scholesy distinctly uncomfortable, and he shuffles at the ground in his shoes (which he realises have holes in them and are definitely not the pair Phil bought him from Aldo the other week.) So he's entirely unprepared - although he really should have known better, nineteen years and 156 goals for practice - when the hug comes.

"Scholesy," Gaz mutters, "you mad bastard."

Scholesy's just spent two hours getting smacked around, struggling through the snow and freezing to death, but he'd trudge a thousand miles more if it meant always being this warm.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **011\. D O M E S T I C**
> 
> _Scholesy thinks it's a good idea to play 'would you rather' so Gaz indulges him. Kind of._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set some time after the CL finall 08/09 season maybe. It gets a little bit angsty at the end but FRET NOT, everything's okay Scheville is love Scheville is life uwu

 “Okay. Wazza or – ” Gaz’s brow furrows as he tries gallantly to manoeuvre the bacon back into the pan. Scholesy makes no attempt to help, having commandeered the entire sofa and revelling in the unfamiliar experience (when you’re short, all these victories count ten times as much). “- Cristiano?”

“Wazza?” scoffs Scholesy, lifting his head over the edge of the sofa to eyeball Gaz. “He’s great for banter and all, but he looks like a pasty. You really think I’d want to fuck a pasty?”

Gaz twitches his nose in annoyance as the bacon limps over the side of the pan, dangling dangerously close to the fire. “You never know,” he says innocently, prodding at the strip with his spatula. “Pasties are pretty attractive, and that.”

“That’s because you and Phil could eat all the pasties in England and still complain you’re hungry.” Scholesy leans back to resume dominance over his realm. “Nope. Definitely Cristiano. The lad used to be a bit of a stick, but he’s living proof that some people do grow out of the whole meatless-beanpole stage.”

There’s a pointedness in his tone that Gaz doesn’t quite like. If the bacon hadn’t been so greasy, and if it hadn’t been his sofa, he’d have flung the contents of the frying pan at the ginger midget. Instead he busies himself watching the fire (and doesn’t give his stomach a poke to check how meatlessly-beanpole he is). 

“Your turn.” Scholesy sticks a thoughtful finger in the air. “Michael or Fletch?”

“Ooh.” Gaz can’t believe he’s just said ‘ooh’, like it’s actually a tantalising choice that requires some thought. Scholesy grins at him like an angel and he knows that the idiot’s already recorded this for future blackmail at some point. “Carras, I think. Give him a bit of stubble and he’d look all right.”

“I’ll be sure to let him know,” says Scholesy, reluctantly sliding himself off the fabric and onto one of the high wooden chairs of the kitchen table. “Hey, Carras. Gaz says he’d fuck you if you grew a beard to match his ‘stache.”

Gaz throws a pancake at Scholesy’s head. Scholesy ducks and giggles at the defender’s face as he mourns the loss of a great piece of art. (He likes this sort of domestic, old-married-couple feel, the crackle of the stove, the smell of Gaz’s shampoo on a lazy Sunday morning. Later he might put his head on Gaz’s shoulder and Gaz might pat him absently as he reads the papers. He might like that to happen quite a lot. Even though he’s not going to tell anyone that.)

“I think we’re running out of our lot,” says Gaz, easing two plates onto the table like a nervous waiter. Scholesy tries very hard to swallow his laughter at the sight of a sunny side up slash bacon smiley face on his plate. “How about…Terry or Lamps?”

“Lamps,” Scholesy says a little too quickly. Gaz looks up from his plate mid-cut, an eyebrow raised in question. “I mean. It isn’t really much of a choice, is it? Lamps or a guy who looks like he’d made a career out of being a punching bag.”

“True,” Gaz agrees after a beat. “Plus every time I look at him I see him crying in Moscow.”

(The game he didn’t play, though when Makélélé crashed into Scholesy he damn near ran onto the field and Ji-Sung had to hold him back from punching everyone else’s noses and suspending the game.)

Scholesy’s mouth is scrunched up in the trying-to-be-annoying face Gaz (and everyone who’s met him, to be fair) knows so well. “Gerrard or Carragher?”

Gaz swears that Scholesy waited expressly for him to bring the mug to his mouth before asking that. He chokes on his coffee and probably would have died had he not been so set against his tombstone reading ‘here lies Gary Neville, killed by Scousers’.

“What the fuck, Scholesy, do you want to kill me? No, wait. Do you want me to kill you?” There’s both horror and disgust written all over his face and Scholesy is this close to pissing himself laughing. (Gaz’s expressions are the real reason he contracted asthma, he’s told himself multiple times.)

“Go on, then, Neville. Give us an answer.”

Gaz looks like a man who is mournfully contemplating the execution options presented to him by his jailer. “I’m never cooking for you again,” he sniffs.

“Good, it’ll be less likely I die from food poisoning.” Scholesy says this as he leans over to steal a bit of Gaz’s toast, ‘a bit’ meaning the entire piece. Pieces.

Scholesy is incorrigible but Gaz knows if he told him he’d just take it as a compliment, so instead he buries his face in his hands, mumbles something that sounds vaguely like “Carragher”, and then stuffs his mouth full of bacon to pretend he hadn’t said anything at all.

“Oh my god.” Scholesy’s never seen Gaz’s face take ‘is a red’ so literally. He claps his hands like a little boy, spinning around on his chair (Gaz is disappointed that he doesn’t accidentally fall off). “I can’t believe it. Fucking _Carragher_? You two can’t even get close to each other without being arrested for assault. Can I watch?”

Gaz growls. “Shut the fuck up, Scholes. Giggsy or Butty?”

Scholesy stops laughing to stare at Gaz open mouthed. There are images floating around in his head that he really wouldn’t like to see, including snapshots of the horror that was the hairy situation after the Arsenal semi-final. “Butty,” he says finally. “At least he doesn’t have something on his chest that Aladdin would ride if he ever got rid of his magic carpet.”

Gaz snorts into his coffee. “Fair enough. How about Butty or Philip?”

Scholesy stares at him, scandalised. “He’s your _brother_ , Gaz.”

“I know. And a twat. But for science – Butty or Phil?”

“Phil’s got nice abs,” Scholesy says helplessly, and Gaz’s cackles go ringing around the whitewashed walls.

“Oh dear lord,” he breathes, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes and studiously ignoring the killer stare that Scholesy’s giving him. “I’ll have to tell him that. Nice abs. Fuck. Now that’s a proper pick-up line.”

And because Scholesy’s a little bit angry with Gaz and a little bit annoyed with himself, he says, “Me or Becks?”

Gaz stops laughing and it’s like a stone wall has come down between them, wrapping itself around him and preserving his blank, cold features. It has gone far past the shut-the-fuck-up domestic tiff level. A bolt of fear shoots through Scholesy, and suddenly he’s terrified of what he’s gone and done.

“I’m sorry, Gary,” he stammers. “I’m sorry.”

(And Gaz is sorry too, because he knows that he wouldn’t be able to choose, because if Becks came back and both of them were stood before him holding out their hands and grinning their stupid smiles, infuriating in different ways, he wouldn’t know which to hold, he hates himself for that.)

"Don't answer that," Scholesy is saying, wringing his hands. "It's okay. Don't answer that.

Gaz grits his teeth and breathes.

(Only one of them stayed.) 

“Sorry, Scholesy,” he says, expelling the air from his lungs like a smoker who’s just had his first cigarette in years. “But Becks has nice abs.”

And he grins, the meatless-beanpole-bastard, the wall is gone and the lights are bright again, and Scholesy chucks a pancake at his head and grins too.


End file.
